


The Little Things

by TheDarkChocolateLord



Series: Keeptober 2020 [25]
Category: Keeper of the Lost Cities Series - Shannon Messenger
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Mild Angst, Nostalgia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-04
Updated: 2020-11-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:27:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27379471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDarkChocolateLord/pseuds/TheDarkChocolateLord
Summary: Amy looks back on her time in the Lost Cities.Written for Keeptober 2020 for the prompt 'Leaping Crystal'.
Relationships: Amy Foster & Sophie Foster (Keeper of the Lost Cities)
Series: Keeptober 2020 [25]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1973125
Comments: 4
Kudos: 11





	The Little Things

It's the little things that remind Amy of the Lost Cities.

Old newspapers she covers her desk with when working on art project, bright color photos of the flowers juxtaposed against the ashy grey text about the "extraordinary efflorescence". Ice cream sundaes that taste like cold mallowmelt, like eating a midnight snack with Livvy when neither of them can sleep. The class field trip to the aquarium, walking through a glass-walled tunnel with fish on three sides, reminds her of the view beyond the force field of Atlantis. 

She chose to not forget, and forgetting is no longer an option when she digs through the box of Christmas decorations and all the ornaments are tasteful and new; she can't find the falling-apart Santa she made in first grade, with  _ Amy Foster  _ scrawled on the back in her six-year-old handwriting. When her dark-haired, five-foot-zero, usually grumpy history teacher reminisces about the past, just like Bronte. When her new friend Finley has Sophie's determination and Livvy's sense of humor. When she has to lock her Imparter in her desk drawer to stop her from hailing Sophie when she wakes up from a nightmare that her parents are gone for good. 

She chose not to forget, and some days she wishes she had forgotten, wishes she didn't have weeks of fear and anxiety and worry trapped in her brain that sometimes rises up and makes her want to scream. Wishes that she was like her parents, content with life and never wondering about what was missing. Wishes that when she turned to her left at the dinner table, she didn't expect to see Sophie there, twirling her fork in her fettuccine and talking about college applications.

She chose not to forget, so she might as well remember. And that includes good things as well as bad.

_ Remember flying on an alicorn?  _ A postcard of an alicorn tacked to the bulletin board above her desk.

_ Remember Prattles?  _ An afternoon spent baking with her friends that results in burnt sugar everywhere and lots of laughter.

_ Remember the crazy animals at Havenfield?  _ Doodles of dinosaurs and mammoths and verminions fill the margins of her notes.

_ Remember light leaping?  _ A new set of wind chimes hanging from the eaves, delicately cut glass tinkling like melodic ice in a tall glass of water.

_ Remember Sophie?  _ There are so many things that remind her of Sophie.

Late one night, lying on the grass looking up at the stars, she's reminded of a world with light leaping and mallowmelt and a starry evening spent flying on alicorns. A world worth remembering. A world with a sister who she loves.

Maybe, somewhere out there, in a different world, at a different house, with different parents, her sister is staring at the same sky.

  
  



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